


No One But You is Truly Kissed by the Silver Light

by Loz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Father-Son Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22067464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loz/pseuds/Loz
Summary: Stiles is a moon deity who develops a friendship with a boy who has a secret.
Relationships: Scott McCall/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 28
Kudos: 57





	No One But You is Truly Kissed by the Silver Light

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by the Harry James Angus song 'Light of the Moon', which is itself a retelling of the Ancient Greek myth of Selene and Endymion.

There’s a weight that comes from watching mortals for millennia. It begins as a comfortable blanket, a warmth that steadies and grounds, a reassurance of wielding power. It continues as pressure on limbs that long to break free and shirk responsibility. And after a while, not long enough and somehow still too long, it’s an oppressive, suffocating burden. 

One particular deity knows this burden all too well.

They try not to grow attached to the people they watch and walk among, of course they do. They mostly maintain a respectful distance and ignore the stirrings of curiosity they feel in observing the daily lives of these beings who have little else than their drive and ingenuity. They attempt to be impartial when someone they’ve surreptitiously following prays to the Gods for guidance. They can’t help it if they accidentally befriend a shepherd’s daughter, a coal-miner’s son, an executive’s housekeeper, the Sheriff of a small town. Or finds themself fascinated by dramatic retellings, plays, and eventually movies and television. Or stumbles into answering the plaintive cries for help that they manage to hear. 

Even if they could help it, they wouldn’t. Their life is more meaningful, filled with purpose, when they choose to interact. It makes the weight they feel something worth carrying. Their powers are frequently useless now that they’ve learned from the humans how to automate the ellipsis of the moon, the timing of the tides. It took thousands of years of refinement, but it works perfectly with a series of zeroes and ones. Their only hands-on work comes in the form of maintenance, the occasional witches’ spell or curse, and the optical illusions of solar and lunar eclipses. 

Only one person knows the truth of them; the aforementioned Sheriff, who saved them from a vengeful Kitsune when they refused to grant her stronger magical abilities. Had Noah Stilinski known what he was doing, there are doubts whether he would have, but he lifted what looked like an eight year old boy from the path of a Godslayer arrow, sheltered them in his well-equipped home over a two-day period and listened skeptically to their story.

“You’re telling me you’re a mystical deity.”

“Yes.”

“And you control the moon.”

“I implemented the code that controls the moon and sometimes I need to debug, but yes, essentially.”

“Listen, kid, as soon as this craziness is over and Hatsue Yokoyama is caught, I’m gonna find your parents and they’re gonna be thrilled their little runaway has been returned safely.”

But Noah found no records of the child, and all DNA tests he sneaked through the lab revealed a complete lack of DNA. After a month, during which the child tried to prove to him on several occasions they were who they said they were by bouncing waves of moonlight, staging an unscheduled lunar eclipse, and causing a mini Tsunami in Beacon Hills Lake, he had to conclude it was the truth. At that point, several people around the town had seen him with the child, had asked who he was, so he lied and said it was his nephew named Stiles ;- it was a family nickname and he hadn’t had his morning coffee that day.

Stiles liked living with Noah Stilinski. Sheriff Stilinski was a good man. Kind. Strong and warm-hearted. Ever since he had started taking care of Stiles, the look of stress and apathy had eased from around his eyes. He no longer had an ever-present air of loneliness and regret. 

So the moon deity, who had never had a real name before, though they’d been called many different things over the centuries –Sin, Selardi, Selene, and that was only the names beginning with ‘S’ -- stayed as a young boy. Stayed as Stiles.

*

Eight years pass in the blink of an eye; almost literally, for Stiles, who has had the same argument with one of his siblings about something he said offhand nine thousand years ago. Before Stiles really realizes it the shape he’s inhabiting has shifted from a slightly pudgy child to an awkwardly gangly teenager. The body is unfortunately filled with all of the usual proclivities of teenagers. He is perpetually hungry, frequently horny, and wakes up at 10 in the morning feeling hung over despite never having touched a drop of alcohol. 

Noah enrolled him in a private satellite homeschool program when he discovered Stiles was staying. It’s only for show, but he’s weirdly insistent about it, mentions agencies who’d get involved in his life if Stiles doesn’t engage. It takes Stiles a couple of hours a week to complete his coursework and he only gets failing grades when he takes umbrage at how artificially the questions are constructed, how obviously they require the wrong answer. He gets close to failing grades when he chooses to complete assignments on more interesting topics than those assigned. He’s lived in many fascinating places in his lifetime and if it weren’t for Noah and the strange compelling energy coming from the Preserve, he would be visiting them now, so sometimes he needs to find his fun. 

After the fifth C- in a row, Noah crashes down on the couch next to Stiles. He had an overnight shift and the weariness of years past is creeping up on him again. He looks tired, in his skin, in his bones, and Stiles knows he will cast a sleep spell for him later, to ease him into dreamless slumber. 

“I had a forty minute phone call from your online tutor earlier. He isn’t impressed. I told him you’ll try harder next time, but something tells me the issue isn’t effort. Do you feel trapped, is that it?” Noah says, nursing a double whiskey. 

Stiles would drink too, but this body doesn’t respond well when he tries. 

“A little,” Stiles admits, flinching when Noah’s expression crumples. “Not with you,” he adds hastily. “And not because of anything you’ve done. But I’ve always been social despite myself and it gets lonely and boring when you’re at work. I can only wander around Beacon Hills for so long before I’ve seen everything and everyone there is to see.”

Noah nods, his lips pressing into a thin line. “You wanna go back home?”

“Noah, the only home I’ve ever had is here with you,” Stiles says, as heartfelt as he can, because it’s true, and because it’s something he knows Noah needs to hear. “I don’t wanna give that up.”

“Well, then, you should go to school, spend time with people your own age.”

“That’s impossible. Those people don’t exist.”

Noah spreads his free hand out, waves it distractedly. “You know what I mean.”

“You want me to pull an Edward Cullen? Do I _have_ to find my very own Bella?”

Noah blinks at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s a damned filthy lie. I’ve raided every single one of your bookshelves. You have the whole trilogy. It was well-thumbed.”

The rest of Noah’s tension dissipates at this, the corners of his mouth twitch. He rubs a hand on the back of his neck, a subconscious gesture that Stiles has adopted to lend credence to the suggestion of them being related. 

“I know it sounds ridiculous,” Noah says, “But maybe it’s what we should’ve done all along. I never meant to keep you cooped up here like some sort of museum piece. You need more human interaction than I can afford to give you. You wrote a ten-page essay about prostate orgasms, Stiles. Your paper was supposed to be about the Suez Canal. That’s the kind of thing that garners suspicion.”

Stiles thinks about it – school. Being surrounded by young people learning their way in the world. It sounds torturous. But then again, he hadn’t realized he’d been spinning his wheels for so long. He’s been in a torture of his own making for a period of time that to humans seems like an age. He needs to shake it up. 

*

Five minutes into his first day of school it’s already one of the worst days of Stiles’ long life. His backpack strap breaks the moment he walks through the front door, he slips on the newly polished floor and goes careening into a locker, almost dislocating his knee. And he gets stared at by everyone in the hallway, as if he were some kind of freak. There’s heat creeping over his chest, up his neck, and across his cheeks like a sudden lick of flame. He looks around, swallows a bunch, waves the hand that isn’t frantically clutching the remaining strap on his backpack. 

“Hey guys,” he says, and since when did his voice ever sound that croaky and high-pitched? “I’m the new kid. Stiles.”

No one replies. Several people turn away and start walking in the opposite direction. One girl actively sneers at him. It isn’t the most auspicious start. 

Stiles is used to observing from afar and waiting until someone starts talking to him, so this is the strategy he adopts for the rest of his day. He puts up with one embarrassing teacher introduction after another, hears whispers that he’s the Sheriff’s son – it’s funny how quickly people forget -- though he guesses they could be leaving out the ‘adopted’ for ease of communication. 

Stiles sits alone in the cafeteria at lunch time, people watches. There were some free spots available at tables and even a welcoming look or two, but he’s more settled continuing to observe and analyze. This is the first time in his life that he’s formally gone to school. There were a few chances throughout the millennia and he thought about taking them, but something always held him back. Common sense. 

Still. Being up close like this, in this environment _is_ fascinating. A real life high school isn’t really like television shows or movies would lead anyone to believe. There are some discernible groups on the surrounding tables, but nothing so clear-cut as Jocks vs Nerds or Mean Girls and Theater Kids. Mostly they’re mixed friendship groups, comprised of people who’ve probably known each other since starting elementary school. There will be the occasional newcomer among them, someone who only came to Beacon Hills during middle school, maybe. There might be one other new transfer, or an exchange student. But all in all, there are hundreds of insiders, with inside jokes and inside understandings. While Stiles stands on the outside, peering in. 

He finishes his halusky, starts crunching into his apple, fiddles with the top of his milk carton one-handed. On the table closest to him the students are ‘whispering’ and he catches snippets of their conversation. 

“I heard his family died in a crash so the Sheriff adopted him.”

“I heard he’s the Sheriff’s illegitimate lovechild from his affair with a stripper.”

“No, you have it all wrong. He’s the Sheriff’s nephew,” another voice says. Stiles almost calls out ‘ding ding ding’, since they know his cover-story, but then they continue. “And he’s in recovery from a rare form of cancer. No one has that buzzcut by choice.”

 _Stiles_ has that buzzcut by choice. It’s easy to manage! It looks fine! Man, kids are cruel. 

After lunch, Stiles literally counts the seconds until home time. He’s used to hours feeling like a blip of his consciousness, of days melding into a single sense memory, but not this day. He is going to be able to recall every moment of this in excruciating detail. 

He’s clattering down the stairs, concentrating on his feet because both of his hands are needed to hold his unwieldy broken backpack and when he can’t hold the rails he has a habit of falling, when he slams into a solid wall. He blearily looks up and quickly realizes it wasn’t a wall, it’s a boy. The boy’s got his hands outstretched, is apologizing profusely, his dark eyes sweeping over Stiles’ body.

Time stops. The dark-eyed boy is frowning slightly, has bitten his plush lower lip. His brown wavy hair is in disarray, a lock falling across his forehead. His brown skin shows the slightest of blushes and as he speaks he muddles his words and stammers. His expression is at once worried and kind. Stiles is dimly aware he’s on his ass, gazing up at someone who has literally and figuratively taken his breath away. 

“… take my hand,” the boy says, holding his hand out. Stiles knows he said a lot more beforehand, but can’t imagine what it might’ve been beyond ‘sorry’. He grasps hold of the boy’s hand and levers himself up. 

There are people walking all around them, a couple grumbling that they’re taking up space in a major walkway. 

“Who _are_ you?” Stiles asks, because apparently sometime between getting knocked over and looking into this boy’s warm, brown eyes he forgot to human. 

“I’m Scott?” Scott says, and Stiles has no idea why it sounds like a question, except Scott continues. “I already said that. How badly did you hit your head? Maybe you should come see my mom. She’s a nurse.”

“I didn’t. Hit my head. I was just thinking to myself while you were talking and kinda missed every word you said.”

At this point, Stiles realizes he’s still holding Scott’s hand. He lets go, but not hastily -- with a final, soft pat to say thank you. 

“Oh, okay,” Scott says. He fiddles with his cuff and Stiles looks over his attire. He’s wearing a burgundy colored jersey over a long-sleeved white top, shorts, long socks and sneakers. He’s some kind of athlete. 

“I’m Stiles.”

“What’s that?”

“My name. It’s a nickname. My last name’s Stilinski, so…”

“Like the Sheriff!” Scott blurts before Stiles can think of how to finish his thought. 

Despite himself, Stiles finds himself smiling. He nods and gives Scott a wink. “Exactly like him because he’s my uncle.”

There’s a beat of silence, two. 

“Well, I’m sorry again but I’ve gotta get to Lacrosse training. I think I’m already late. But I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Stiles is confused by how earnest Scott sounds when he says that, as if it’s a plan they’ve agreed on and he’s determined to see it through. 

“Yeah, uhh, have a good practice,” Stiles replies, watching as Scott bounds up the steps in three quick leaps, mesmerized by his back muscles, broad shoulders and tapered waist. 

Stiles swivels back around, ensures nothing flew out of his backpack in the collision, begins the trek home. Lacrosse sounds like it could be interesting. He’d hopefully make friends, have something to look forward to beyond the drudgery of school, and he’d finally be learning something new. He wonders why he never considered joining a sports team before.

* 

Stiles is surprisingly invested in Lacrosse. Lacrosse is great to watch and a bitch to play, combining as it does finely honed hand-eye co-ordination and _running_ , but for some reason Stiles enjoys it when he gets to participate. Which, as it turns out, is in drills only, because as soon as a game’s on he’s relegated to the position of bench-warmer. 

He’s _more_ invested in Scott. For the first few games of the season Scott sits next to him on the aforementioned bench and Stiles gets better and better at getting him to open up. At first, Scott’s reticent, faltering, doesn’t seem to want to share, but Stiles has perfected the art of talking and saying very little, and he’s genuinely interested in what Scott has to say. 

“I think Uncle Noah’s coming to see me sit here tonight,” Stiles says, which is technically a lie. He _knows_ Noah’s planning on watching the game, and unless there’s a sudden spate of unexplained murders, he’ll definitely be there. Noah is over the moon that Stiles has joined an extracurricular activity – pun fully intended. “Your parents coming?”

“My mom might come, if she gets off shift on time.”

“What about your dad?”

Scott ducks his head down, fiddles with his shoelaces. “He’s not in the picture.”

“Oh my God, how did I not know that? That’s yet another thing we have in common.” 

He’s not trying to be callous, but he realizes a few seconds afterward he says this that he is. Stiles pokes at the ground with a stick he procured for the very purpose of poking. He sucks in his cheeks, wonders what a normal human would say to backtrack. 

“I don’t miss my dad at all. He moved out of state last year and he’s only called once. I feel relief that he hasn’t tried to keep in touch. Is that a terrible thing to say?” Scott says, quiet. 

“I think you probably have very good reasons for feeling like this,” Stiles says, because the set of Scott’s shoulders physically pains him. 

Scott gives a soft, disbelieving smile, and Stiles doesn’t know what his own face does in response. He feels hot all over and numb at the lips, and his eyes are stinging a little bit like he’s going to cry. He has no idea why these are the physical reactions he’s going through and he thinks if Coach Finstock asked him to run right now, he’d manage a marathon to get away from these sensations. 

“Stiles!” Noah calls from the stands, saving him yet again. He waves, eyes and smile bright and wide. 

Stiles waves back, so proud to have brought that joy to the man, even if it’s essentially for nothing more than heating some planks of wood. On any given day, Stiles doesn’t know who best fulfills the caretaker role in their relationship. On any given day, he doesn’t think it matters.

“He looks so proud of you, dude,” Scott says, sounding pleased for Stiles, and not the slightest bit jealous. Stiles glances at him as quickly as he can to determine that it’s not a lie. If it is, Scott should teach semester-long courses on subterfuge.

“I know. Maybe one day he will come and see me and I’ll actually be on the field.”

Scott pats his shoulder. “It’s good to have dreams.”

Stiles doesn’t know what his face does this time either, only knows that his whole body is thrumming with energy and he’s cursing that he’s never fully prepared himself for this – whatever this is.

*

“Do you know what you are?” one of the other deities asked once, when they went by the name Set and reveled in chaos and violence. They were speaking to the moon deity who at that time had taken the name Khonsu. 

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” the moon deity replied. 

“You’re a host to the little human parasites. You let them feed on you, drain your energy, take your power, and for what? So you can bask in their glow while they should be enthralled with yours?”

“Do you ever get bored of hearing your own voice?”

*

Stiles starts sitting next to Scott in every class they share. At first he makes it look like an accident, a coincidence that he’s perfectly in time to disrupt the long-held seating patterns of every subject, that he had no choice but to take the seat next to Scott. But after a couple days, Scott leans over and says, “Thanks for helping me get rid of Jackson,” and he realizes Scott knew it was deliberate and was fully complicit. 

They end up having to partner on an Econ project and Stiles admires Scott’s ready answers, problem-solving, and dedication. He doesn’t understand why his heart does the snare drum thing it does when Scott smiles at him, or why his hands get clammy whenever they inadvertently touch, but he catalogs these reactions because it’s a fascinating turn of events. He should have figured that the moment he let his guard down and allowed himself to get close to mortals he’d realize all the ways he embodies mortality.

Stiles goes to Scott’s for study dates and frequently finds himself awkwardly staring at Scott’s lips and wondering what they’d feel like pressed up against his own. 

Scott’s house is cozy in a way Stiles aspires to make Noah’s home. It has a lived-in, warm ambiance that rests in the slightly worn but timeless furniture and the pops of art and color that adorn the walls. Photos of Scott and his mom are on the mantel and every time Stiles is left alone he finds himself gravitating to gaze at them. He thinks they would have been friends, if he and Noah hadn’t been hiding him from the world. 

They’re sitting in Scott’s kitchen on one of these days, sitting at the dining table with their books and notes spread between them. Their task is to design a week’s budget and go into an in-depth cost-benefit analysis. Stiles’ mind frequently wanders, while Scott concentrates on writing with a furrowed brow. 

“So how long do you think capitalism’s gonna last?” Stiles asks, to fill in the silence.

Scott frowns up at him. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s a fairly large contingent of people who’ve realized it’s not working, so how long until the next big revolution? 20 years? 50? 100?”

“What would we have if we didn’t have capitalism?”

“Gift economy, collectivist economy, reciprocal altruism, market socialism…”

“Like… communism? But hasn’t society proven kinda definitively that it doesn’t work?”

Stiles is surprised by Scott’s cynicism. More than once Scott has said words to the effect of ‘don’t underestimate people, they can surprise you’. Or ‘empathy is the most important quality someone can have’. And here he is dismissing potlatch and collectivism and an economic model based on being good to one another. Stiles cannot, will not, let that lie unspoken between them. 

“I thought you believed the best in people?”

Scott twists his lips up. “I think everyone has the potential to do good, and that people should be given a chance to make different choices, yeah. The thing is? I don’t know if there’s any proof we’re capable of the ideals you’re espousing, but there’s so much proof that we’re not.”

“Societies _have_ been successful with them before,” Stiles points out. “You’ve just been brainwashed by The Man and his scary ‘are you now or have you ever been’ doublespeak.”

Scott ducks his head, wry. “Maybe so. It’d be good to imagine a world where everyone was given a fair chance, wouldn’t it?”

The wistfulness in Scott’s gaze rips Stiles up, a little bit. Perhaps, by removing themselves so thoroughly from the humans’ orbit and allowing them such free will, his siblings and he have done a disservice to the mortal beings. Maybe if they’d stayed and counselled, guided, life would be better for all human kind. 

But not everyone is as kind-hearted and humble as Scott. Stiles has known several people over the millennia who would have taken full advantage of deities’ powers to merely further their own cause. It leaves a sour taste in Stiles’ mouth, to realize that this thread of cynicism in Scott is _realism._

*

School as an institution is fine. It’s not great. It’s weirdly outdated with the rest of society, in terms of basics like technology, routines and aesthetic. But it’s like a little bubble, a training ground to practice skills that may come in handy in the macrocosm of the real world. And that’s what Stiles needs, if he’s ever going to learn how to successfully integrate into wider society.

Sometimes the teachers try to teach things that are patently wrong, so Stiles gets a _reputation_. The chemistry teacher, Harris, actually tells him he’s a ‘freaking smartass’ to his face, which is novel. Stiles gets a week’s worth of detention when he flicks Harris a double thumbs-up. Stiles’ English teacher acknowledges that the curriculum is simultaneously too broad and too narrow, and curses the required reading booklist she’s been saddled with. She adds some other optional reading, which Stiles is psyched for because if he has to read another page with Holden Caulfield he _will_ find a way to bend his powers so he can turn fictional characters corporeal and then _murder_ the whiny little bastard. 

Mostly, Stiles likes school because he likes getting to interact with more humans than he ever has before. He’s always been afraid of that, but he’s here now so he might as well make the most of it. And the thing is? Teenaged humans are the most human humans of them all, barring three-year old toddlers. Everything they feel is loud and he loves that. 

“You’re stunning,” Stiles says to Lydia Martin one day, as the first words in a conversation they were not having. 

She tilts her head to the side, arches an eyebrow, and walks straight past him. 

“Lydia Martin is not here for your consumption,” Harley says. 

“She’s gay?” Stiles asks, thinking about how easy it could be to transmute his physical appearance. 

“Not that I know of, and that isn’t why I said that.”

“Harley, don’t dash Stiles’ dreams before they’ve had time to form,” Scott says, half-joking and half genuinely remonstrative. “Lydia isn’t for anyone’s _consumption_ , but she might want to hang out with Stiles once she gets to know him.”

“Call me when that’s something that happens in this reality.”

Stiles doesn’t take it personally. Except for how he kind of does. “Am I not attractive?” he asks Scott, blinking. He… doesn’t think this body is any uglier than others? 

Maybe he needs to completely re-evaluate what humans find aesthetically pleasing? He remembers Cleopatra and how everyone fell head over heels for her, but how, without the make-up and the fake beard she was as ordinary and asymmetrical as the lowliest of servants. 

Scott looks a little shell-shocked, but then pats his shoulder. “You’re plenty attractive. You’re just not also rich and well-connected. Lydia tends to go for people exactly like her. Not only good-looking, but exemplary in _every_ way.”

“Oh, okay, that’s all right then. My sparkling personality can help her ignore my lack of fortune and networking abilities.”

“But not if you’re butt-ugly?” Harley says, a tone in her voice that suggests she doesn’t think Stiles is as attractive as Scott’s trying to lead him to believe. 

“Personality only gets you so far.”

“You would know.”

“Scott, I get the sense Harley doesn’t like me very much,” Stiles says, looking between Scott and Harley with exaggeration. He’s feigning an air of innocence and confusion. Scott looks consoling, but also very much like he wishes he were anywhere else.

Harley ducks close and lightly punches him on the arm. “I’m playing with you, Stilinski,” she says. 

“So you’d go on a date with me?” Stiles asks, one hundred percent sure of the answer.

Harley laughs, splitting off from them at the end of the hall to go to debate practice. “Hell no.”

“Would _you_ go on a date with me?” Stiles asks Scott.

Scott stares at the oncoming traffic of students, appears to be hedging his bets. He rocks his head from side to side; a physical manifestation of switching between different choices. 

“I guess, if you asked,” Scott finally answers, resuming his journey to Econ. “But I’d want the real deal – picked up in a limo, a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a corsage, fine dining at Beacon Hills’ most exclusive restaurant – and no I don’t mean the Olive Garden that’s at the other end of town. It’d have to be an event.”

“So you’re only after money too, eh?” Stiles says, shaking his head. He nudges into Scott. “Guess I’ve gotta make do with just me and my best friend.” He wiggles his fingers and eyebrows for effect. 

Scott laughs. “Gross.”

*

The moon is especially beautiful tonight. She waxes and wanes, reflecting the sun’s glow with ethereal luminosity. Stiles watches her from the highest point in Beacon Hills and then realizes that’s not enough. It’s been a long time since he made the trip, but he can’t resist seeing her up close. It doesn’t drain too much of his power and he wonders why he waited decades. It’s easy, to soar up through the atmosphere, to cloak his mortal body with a protective shield.

As he skids onto the surface of the moon, Stiles both admires her and feels a deep sense of pride. He bounces along, choosing to allow gravity’s effects while dismissing the problems inherent in the lack of oxygen. Even if he doesn’t visit as often, the moon is Stiles’ child, his creation, and he will love her with every beat of his heart. Taking care of her in the early days took all of his commitment and energy, but it was worth it. And now she rarely needs him, he sometimes feels a little bereft, even though _he’s_ the one who made that so.

Stiles sits down in the sea of tranquility, leaning back on his hands and gazing at the plain of light blue basalt before him. He once cleared up the wreckages of the lunar probes and surveyors before he caught wind of that causing a gigantic shitstorm within both NASA and the Soviet Space Program. The facsimiles mar the landscape and make what was once pure beauty just that little bit less perfect, but he gets it, he thinks. The humans want a mark on the moon to say she’s theirs. In a way, she is his gift to them. It was his idea to create the tides, his to solve the problem of allowing enough light during the darkness so that the creatures below were not completely incapacitated. He imagined her and created her for the inhabitants of Earth before the humans, but when he heard them telling stories and songs about her, he decided he could share, even if they were wont to send detritus onto her. Plus, if he hadn’t placed the facsimiles, there was the whole terror of alien interference thing that he laughed about for a long, long time. 

Stiles stays for a couple of hours, thinking about what’s going on in his life, telling everything to the moon even though she can’t respond – there’s no sentience or sapience there, though he considered that once upon a time. He gazes at Earth from afar, the marble so blue and so clear. Someday soon, in a blink, in a breath, this time he has in Beacon Hills will all be over, so he’s resolving himself to enjoy it while he can. He wants to be able to look fondly back and remember the connections he forged. He wants to be able to reminisce about the time he allowed himself to care for something other than himself and his moon. 

*

There are, of course, many stories of immortal deities falling in love with mortal beings. Most of them are elaborate fabrications imagined by thirsty bitches; mortal _and_ immortal. But one or two are true. 

One of Stiles’ siblings fell in love with what they called ‘the prettiest human who ever could be’, only to enrage one of their cousins. It was mythologized as the story of Aphrodite and Adonis when Stiles – back in the days where drinking suited the body and boredom presented itself as storytelling – told a couple of fellow drunkards, and it honestly baffles him that the story’s still told. Then again, the same thing’s happened with Romulus and Remus, King Arthur and any and all urban legends involving guys with hooks for hands, so maybe it’s a good thing this body rejects alcohol so vehemently. He starts centuries’ long oral and written traditions when he’s sauced up. 

So, it’s rare, is the thing, and he’s pretty sure he’s not in love with Scott. He just likes being near him, and wakes up on time every day so he’ll be early for school because they meet on the steps of Beacon Hills High, and thinks about him when he’s not next to him, because thinking about Scott brightens any moment. 

Plus, Scott is fascinating. Even though he’s by far the kindest person Stiles has met at the school, he doesn’t have many friends. He spends some breaks with Harley, but she’s head of the debate club, part of the Year Book committee and part of the marching band, so therefore constantly on demand, and he’ll be seen chatting with Danny until Jackson arrives. Jackson is one of the douchiest people Stiles has ever met, in millennia, so he doesn’t exactly blame Scott for noping the fuck outta there. And apart from that, there’s Stiles. 

Scott can be kind of quiet and isn’t really forthcoming about his passions. It literally takes months to discover Scott’s not on the Lacrosse team simply because it’ll look good on his CV, but because he aspires to play, and play well. Stiles only finds out Scott has a job at the Animal Clinic because Harley tells him. He likes generic pop and some pop punk, likes superhero and animated movies more than any other kinds, and admits to watching cooking shows as a backdrop to doing his homework because ‘it’s soothing’. 

Stiles has no idea how Scott doesn’t have a hundred and one buddies who flock to him for his calming energies – he seriously _doesn’t_ – but he simultaneously revels in the fact he gets to be the one who does so. 

“You know how Finstock looked me right in the eye when he said he thinks there are people on the team who would benefit from extra practice?” Stiles asks as they’re heading out on a sunny Friday afternoon, surrounded by other students who don’t have either the time or patience to slow down to their leisurely pace.

“I think he was looking at Greenberg behind you, but sure, I remember.”

“I asked him if I’d get shot being on campus on a Sunday and he told me no, so I was thinking of going and doing some cradling, scooping and scoring. Maybe at ten?”

“By yourself? Doesn’t sound very challenging.”

“I mean, no. That’s why I’m inviting you.”

“I feel like you need to rearrange some of those words into some form of question before this can count as an invitation.”

Stiles contains the urge to wrap his arm around Scott and tickle him until he starts to cry from laughter, but only just. 

“Scott McCall,” Stiles says with a flourish, “Would you like to meet me here at ten on Sunday to run through some extra lacrosse drills?”

“Not really,” Scott says with a roll of his head. “Sunday’s my only day off.” He nudges into Stiles’ side, a welcome heat and connection. “But I will.”

Stiles shoots him finger guns and a wink, saying goodbye before he can trip over his feet and make Scott drastically regret his decision. He spends the rest of the day and the whole of Saturday almost vibrating out of his skin. He’s been excited before, but this feels like it’s on a whole other level. 

*

Scott doesn’t show.


End file.
